we don't have a lot of time and what people don't realize. is that we are in a war today in cyberspace. getting caught in the web get turned to the internet for everything from weather forecast a few shopping hackers turn to it to access your most personal information now big businesses are it's coming up with government leaders to do something about it we'll tell you all about it in just a minute. everything i know my neighbors heard. the call. of the. mining for trouble congress went to recess until after the election but not before it muscled a whole regulation bill through the house we'll tell you about the new cold war in

just a bed. it just bothers me when people just walk by and you know don't even know reach out and help. and this man might look homeless but he is far from it i'll tell you why he chooses to sleep on the streets one week every year and what he wants you to know. it's thursday october fourth eight pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching our t.v. . well there is a lot of buzz in washington over cyber security over the threat we face individually and as a nation if we don't take action and address cyber threats and today the u.s. chamber of commerce hosted a summit that brought together big businesses and government officials to discuss the cyber threats arctic correspondent christine was there today to bring us the

developments. the central message here that main street in america has moved it's now online it is after all where people gather to town with their friends do their shopping and yes where they're also vulnerable to criminal activity analysts and speakers here say they are protests not nearly been aggressive enough in dealing with what they call an imminent cyber threat the bad guys are winning they are really sophisticated in their attacks and genius and most of all though they are very closely analyzing the laws around the world we have to be cognizant again of these teenager style gangs that are out there who are now see the internet as a whole nother playground where they can go have their fun all the way up to the nation states who are very determined to go after our nation's secrets your secrets your intellectual property what they should be doing is sharing information with the private sector they're not reading your e-mail they don't care they don't have time they're looking for malware they're looking for code that can show that you're

that an intrusion has occurred that's the kind of thing we need to see more of those in attendance came from the department of homeland security the national security agency and the house of representatives and companies like arisan raytheon and the american gas companies now all of these people seem to have made cyber security a top priority they seem to already be in talks with one another and most also seem very frustrated with the inability of congress to pass legislation on the matter we don't have a lot of time and what people don't realize is that we are in a war today in cyberspace it's happening every single day. and this is the biggest national security threat i can think of that we are not prepared to handle in this country today i guess i just want to get your take on what you think have been the biggest challenges up to this point because this isn't new that the people think that this is needed but it just hasn't really been able to happen especially on a government level i think the biggest problem is we need to inform people about

the problem so they truly understand it as the discussion continues inside between government and business leaders president obama is sitting on a cybersecurity executive order the contents of which are largely unknown but if today's discussion here at the chamber of commerce was any indication the internet as we know it could be changing with potentially fewer freedoms on the internet and a much larger cybersecurity industry in washington christine for sound r.t. . well it has been called one of the least productive congress says in american history the four one hundred twelfth congress has decimal approval ratings hovering around ten percent and while the american people remain frustrated over the so-called do nothing congress interestingly enough congress did do something before taking a break until the election the house managed to pass the stop the war on coal act christine has more. well

i'm afraid what we're seeing is some members of congress pitted against the health of the american people this bill that they just passed which was one of dozens of bills that the house has passed since last year to. demolish environmental protections would weaken safeguards against air pollution at the cost of potentially thousands of lives it would block federal protections against dangerous water pollution from coal mining operations it would prevent the federal government from requiring states to meet clean water standards it would block limits on dangerous carbon pollution and on and on and on we can protect public health and have jobs in this country but this kind of destructive legislation accomplishes nothing other than make it harder for parents to protect the health of their kids

for seniors to stay out of the hospital and for all of us to lead the kind of healthful lives we're entitled to in this great nation there are people whose entire lives revolve around the call industry it's their it their whole lives we had so it needs talent i mean what do you say to those people. do these environmental regulations endangered their livelihood. you know it's not the case the the environment environmental regulations are a very tiny part of the cost of doing business in this country to the extent that the coal industry is endangered it's because that industry can't compete with other cleaner more efficient forms of energy that's the problem they're facing and instead of modernizing and coming up to the to the reality of the situation these companies are running to congress trying to prevent trying to block the kinds of the clean air in clean water protections that have been adopted by bipartisan

consensus over the past forty years that's just plain irresponsible i looks like a their lobbying has been paying off because we stop the war and call bill dead and deed past the house and then this issue was brought up during last night's presidential debate let's take a listen to what republican nominee mitt romney said. i like coal i'm going to make sure we continue to burn clean coal people in the coal industry feel like it's getting crushed by your policies i want to get america and north american energy independence so we can create those jobs and that's a phrase that he kept saying time and time again clean call when you say that it's kind of sounds like an oxymoron is there such a thing as clean coal well tell that to the moms who have to worry about their kids having mercury in their bloodstream which comes from burning coal tell that to the

folks in appalachian whose streams and communities have been damaged and destroyed because of mountaintop removal coal mining tell that to the folks living in the communities where a toxic coal ash waste threatens water supplies the simple fact is there is no such thing as clean coal maybe cleaner but the fact is if we really want to achieve energy independence we need to come up with renewable sources of energy more energy efficiency and ways of being a more friendly to our planet and to ourselves that ensures we have a secure energy future and a clean environment ok a president obama last night during the debate did bring up alternative energy let's take a listen to what he had to say. on energy governor romney and i we both agree that we've got to boost american energy production and oil and natural gas production

are higher than they've been in years but i also believe that we've got to look at the energy source of the future like wind and solar and biofuels and make those investments. and of course right now an energy dependence that's being talked about also the issue of jobs are being talked about that's what some people say that's the number one issue and is this if we do put these regulations on coal could it could that lead to job losses. well you know whenever there's a shift in energy use you're going to see a shift in where people are employed right now we're seeing a shift to natural gas because we're finding more plentiful supplies that still need to be developed in an environmentally responsible way and we have a long way to go on that but to suggest that we have to have air pollution and water pollution and threats to our kids in our seniors and in order to have jobs is

a bankrupt philosophy that the american people have long rejected and rightly so since the clean air act was adopted we've seen jobs increase we've seen the economy grow and that's the kind of job growth we need ok and president obama he did val to make the transition to alternative energy and wind solar and biofuels all these other things but it's realistic to say that we can transition affordably to these alternative energy sources sure it's realistic you know one hundred fifty years ago people would have thought that coal was the only fuel around and we now know that there are a lot of other alternatives if we put our minds to it we can achieve great things in this country but if we keep ourselves mired in the energy choices of the past that's where we'll stay and i don't think that's what people want in this country so ok lastly i do want to ask you it doesn't look like this bill will pass the

senate or president obama is vowing to veto it so it in the event that it does pass or legislation like this does pass what would the long term effects be on on communities on the people where these clients are located well i'm afraid what we'll see is more illness more folks being put in the hospital shorter lifespans and lower quality of life not just in these communities but in down when places that have to deal with that kind of pollution we can do better in this country all right david thank you so much for coming on the show and discussing this very important and timely issue that was david barrett managing attorney for justice thank you. larry now it is that time of the day where we check in with our web team and see what they're working on our team live producer andrew blake is in the newsroom to tell us more hi there and it's not too much here but i do know that

you are working or you worked on a story about something called fusion centers yeah what is that all about and why have governor romney supported them so strongly ok well clearly you didn't read it if you're asking the questions but i'll go easy on you ok so it's actually here in our to america i'm sure you know if we do a lot of stuff about surveillance and better attention on the federal and private level and a lot of the stuff all gets fed to these things called fusion centers now there's almost eighty of them across the united states and they're all set up after september eleventh the kind of finally facilities were able to process all this information coming in whether it's computer history or cell phone records or whatever so part of homeland security they have a pretty big investment here in fact spent at least one point four billion dollars in the last decade through these fusion centers so you know you might be asking well they're collecting all this data is that any useful well bob bipartisan committee on the senate was wondering the same thing they've been studying it for

around two years and they actually just put out their final analysis earlier this week and it this committee says that these fusion centers with seventy seven of them across the u.s. . one hundred forty page document there at least is pretty much not a single nice thing the top of your report the senate pretty much tears apart these fusion centers and say that here you go establishing something for the sake of counterterrorism and instead all you've done this collect useless. actually constitutionally violating. protections of americans through this crazy surveillance of people i'm sorry they didn't come off to eloquently but i think you picked up on it i got it they say you're basically saying that billions and billions of dollars was spent on a program that was not a fact and possibly. unconstitutional oh yeah it was definitely tons of tons of civil liberties violations they were spying on people who were at protecting or spying and people who were protesting exercising the first amendment rights of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and sort of actually having

a reasonable suspicion think people that people were committing crimes staffers at these fusion centers were actually conducting record searches and doing surveillance of just regular americans and they were singling them out and writing up files on them just to be processed for the sake of counterterrorism and once you go back and audit all these things the people even working for the d.h.s.s. you saw these went no no this is kind of a lot of crap is actually a direct quote one of the reviewers of a d h s report actually said during one of the interviews that this is just a bunch of crap so we don't have a final price on everything we know at least a couple hundred million dollars d.h.s.s. possibly spent upwards of one point four billion so far not to mention that a bunch of private local law enforcement agencies are also investing in these fusion centers but like i said we have one hundred forty page report out of the senate that says this is nothing but garbage you have broken the law you've spied on civilians you haven't even caught terrorists and everything under the name of

counterterrorism has just been pretty much wasted and it's cost at least one point four billion dollars so far and so we're actually still going through the floor and i did see a story yesterday about how one of the massachusetts fusion centers was endorsed by governor romney back in the day and there's lots of interesting stuff that's coming out of these reports so far but one nice thing i must say at least in my perspective is that this. partisan senate committee that went over the fusion centers they really couldn't find a single nice thing to say about the report is actually incredibly well written and very very scathing so if you have some cave and that's what it sounds like yeah he has to give if you're not too crazy about the d.h.s.s. and you don't want the government spying on you you should go take a look at what they put together because it's actually really eye opening and hopefully we'll get some changes done because of it and we can. read all about it on the web site our t.v. dot com slash usa and there it is for that update my pleasure that was our t. web producer andrew blake with a preview of what is trending today on our web site. also ahead on r.t.

he's not homeless but for one week every year this new yorkers sleeps on the streets to raise awareness about poverty levels in the u.s. we'll track a silent pursuit and we come back. we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old and just you know look through.

i'm a confession i am a total get a friend that i love robyn hitchcock is like me and pretty sure. i do is kind of yesterday. i'm very proud of the role that it's played. all poverty barely got a mention in last night's presidential debate many families in america though can't afford to forget about it recently released data shows that poverty rates are hitting record levels some people are are dedicated though to highlighting in humanizing the issue of poverty are to correspond to honest aasia churkin our profiles a man who goes homeless in new york city for one week every year to bring attention to their plight. new york city. a

bit. of a blissful carefree time but among the picture perfect settings lives misery and sorrow out in the open basically. invisible so a lot of people it's fields lonely a plague of homelessness has been taking over meijer us cities in the last several years when you see someone really old or someone really young you just think yourself what can i do even if it's a dollar just to help them out and it's awful according to the coalition for the homeless forty three thousand people are in new york city shelters ten thousand families and seventeen thousand children it just bothers me when people just walk by and you know don't even know reach out a hand to help across the country over half a million people are homeless these are human beings that we're talking about here you know these are people you know these are families. these are children use of

from lee's has been trying to raise awareness about this epidemic problem for the last four years every year he leaves his daytime job and goes homeless for a week and attempts to draw attention to what he calls a catastrophe when you see. you know living on the streets begging for money to students you know living out of their cars because they can't afford. college housing i mean yeah i mean this is huge last year you said when barefoot and lived at grand central station in the heart of. this year he's homeless in a park and has taken about silence for the way our cameras caught up with him right before his transformation but i really say it's not to come for someone that you know has to go through this every single day i see you see you know and you know i hear i hear you a silent cries i hear your cries and that's one of the reasons why i'm doing this. it is because of you then again during his project when he did not speak. out on

the streets yusuf is also fasting during the holy month of ramadan a huge percentage of people like live paycheck to paycheck you know what happens when you. living paycheck to paycheck. use of says every year the faces of the homeless change i think if people really. you know the homeless person that you pass on the street could be you that this could happen absolutely anyone people would really. start taking it a little more serious some of the most unexpected new yorkers are living proof before. for about six months i was homeless growing up and i mean i know how hard it is people think that people here do just drug drug addicts or you know someone who just can't get a job in this case for many average americans just getting by is a daily struggle considering that i'm in the verge of homelessness right now and

think about all the time i probably wouldn't because i'm concerned about that every damn i like for most uses project is an excessive challenge they'd rather not take my children with i don't do it myself i don't care about it really. you know that's an argument you can. but. you know we're all little bit self and instead of waiting for politicians to create change you try to take matters into their own hands. as as a as a city as a seat at the front if. for now we're back where we could. all or most vulnerable there's a lot more the politicians could do and there's a lot more that they should until then it's people like you taking one step at a time one of them. a future king or. the south more about years of experience and poverty and america i was joined by r.t.

correspondent on a stasi a turk in a well as this is something that this young man does every year like we mention in this report and it's really you know sad to witness year in and year out we meet up with him to see how he is continuing his fight against poverty and homelessness in the united states and seeing someone like that going through these sacrifices and literally turning teary eyed when talking about the issue of homelessness when talking about all the poverty in the united states and yet politicians really brushing these issues largely aside this is something that you know the changes that you have told us about have been just really frightening he tells us that every year the situation is getting worse and the faces of the people that are homeless and poor on the streets of new york city keeps changing and we brought up people in that report common americans on the street who say look we were dealing with this we're on the brink of homelessness i was homeless once in my youth so this is such a widespread issue and with this particular story this this man does this every

year and with from our experience every time we meet he just gets really sadder and sadder because he sees how little is really getting done to solve these issues. we heard poverty it was only briefly touched upon in last night's presidential debate here's what mitt romney had to say about it last night. a trickle down government approach which has government thinking it can do a better job than free people pursuing their dreams and it's not working and the proof of that is twenty three million people out of work the proof of that is one of the six people in poverty the proof of that is we've gone from thirty two million. to forty seven million of food stamps the proof of that is that fifty percent of college graduates this year can't find work. ok so we heard from mitt romney himself so apparently he does know that this problem does exist and he named those very dismissive. but yet most of the time first of all it was only very

briefly touched upon and that most of the time they were talking about the middle class not to say that the middle class it isn't important in a lot needs to be done to help the middle class but obviously poverty is a huge huge problem in america. so why is it not discussed more good question liz you know as you rightfully say the numbers were mentioned the situation was mentioned in passing we saw romney bring this up of course obama was not talking about this because obviously this does not put him in a good position bringing up these ridiculous numbers that the united states is still dealing with but absolutely that the problem of these debates is not that they were just really a snooze fest according to many just vague words on two candidates you know pretty much saying the fate of the things we've we've known all along but really not focusing on issues that are just so burning for so many americans romney brings up the number of the twenty three million people that are unemployed you know but

they're not talking about the fact that one in six children are living in poverty and the district of columbia the number of poverty among children is thirty percent is anybody talking about this absolutely not because the solutions are just not being presented these candidates don't talk about these issues because apparently they don't know how to solve these problems and this is exactly something that a president should know how to do. and especially during an election campaign coming to an end that's right not too long ago i interviewed dr cornel west and tavis smiley radio talk show host both of them very outspoken on this issue of poverty they are now on this poverty core want to take a listen now to a let's have this smiley had to say about the issue the data keeps coming at us day in and day out that poverty is the new america norm is threatening our democracy it's a matter of national security so by any industry one has to understand that poverty is a major problem that we've got to get addressed in this country. as kind of putting

it in perspective calling the issue of poverty so pervasive that it's a matter of national security and we have this raw data. used that it may be romney's that it. doesn't have the power to affect policy and change perspectives which is also ultimately what needs to be done in order to bring about change. liz it definitely should but apparently it's not for some reason and all of these critics throughout the last year of for example the occupy wall street movement that we've covered extensively have been saying oh these are non-issues that these hippies are bringing up this is exactly the kind of thing that the occupy wall street movement has talked about this entire time that the poverty the ninety nine percent the majority of the people are being left really neglected and like you mentioned of course yes they're talking about the middle class yes it's understood by everybody that more jobs need to be created and the middle class that used to be the american dream and represent the american dream is largely suffering but for

some reason the really extremely poor people in this country right now are really kind of being marginalized and brushed aside and all of these problems the numbers seem to be known to everybody including mitt romney but exactly what and who should be doing something about this is apparently still a mystery all right well hopefully it does get discussed more and makes its way into. i guess the priorities of our elected leaders i guess we're going have to wait and see but on a selfie i thank you so much for coming on the show that was our to correspond on a south america. and now to a story you probably haven't heard about yet affects millions of americans wal-mart the nation's largest employer is coming under fire for its labor policies again employees from multiple stores have decided to strike over the chains anti union policies that's the first time this has happened in wal-mart's fifty year history.

well technically the workers you see striking there are contractors they work on wal-mart's famously efficient supply chain but that efficiency comes at a price workers are protesting low pay and unsafe conditions including violent threats sexual harassment extreme temperatures in forced work the strikers are organized through a coalition called our wal-mart which is technically not a union even though it has backing from the united food and commercial workers union that means that the protesters are not protected under u.s. law to strike for better working conditions a warm wal-mart has not reacted well to unions in the past when a group of food workers voted to join a union wal-mart preferred to shut down the store and start up a new one somewhere else so warehouse workers in places like elwood illinois and riverside california are risking their jobs to make wal-mart a safer place for workers and their future their demands include increased take

home pay insufficient hours or sufficient hours excuse me and ending the culture of silence that lets abusers off the hook wal-mart's low prices every day on everything montra continues to extend to its employees and we're going to leave it off right there but for more on stories we covered you can check out our youtube channel we post everything right there in full or you can that is youtube dot com slash r t america you can also head on over to our web site that is r t dot com slash usa we have a lot of stories posted there where producers are working on our t. dot com slash usa or you can also follow me on twitter at liz wall for now have a great night. pepper spray just burns your eyes right i mean it's like a derivative of actual pepper it's a food product essentially. it's much stronger than anything you'd be by a lot of. thousands of times i'm stronger than.